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Antonin Scalia, a sitting U.S. Supreme Court Justice, has died:
US Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia - one of most conservative members of the high court - has died. Justice Scalia's death could shift the balance of power on the US high court, allowing President Barack Obama to add a fifth liberal justice to the court. The court's conservative majority has recently stalled major efforts by the Obama administration on climate change and immigration.
Justice Scalia, 79, was appointed by President Ronald Reagan in 1986. He died in his sleep early on Saturday while in West Texas for [a] hunting trip, the US Marshall service said. Justice Scalia was one of the most prominent proponents of "originalism" - a conservative legal philosophy that believes the US Constitution has a fixed meaning and does not change with the times.
Justice Scalia's death is, unsurprisingly, now being widely reported.
From the San Antonio Express News:
According to a report, Scalia arrived at the ranch on Friday and attended a private party with about 40 people. When he did not appear for breakfast, a person associated with the ranch went to his room and found a body.
[...] The U.S. Marshal Service, the Presidio County sheriff and the FBI were involved in the investigation. Officials with the law enforcement agencies declined to comment.
A federal official who asked not to be named said there was no evidence of foul play and it appeared that Scalia died of natural causes.
A gray Cadillac hearse pulled into the ranch last Saturday afternoon. The hearse came from Alpine Memorial Funeral Home.
Most major news outlets are covering this story, including CNN [video autoplays], The Washington Post, The New York Times, and NBC.
(Score: 3, Informative) by mendax on Sunday February 14 2016, @04:20AM
You asked for it, you got it. In Brown v. Plata [wikipedia.org], Scalia wrote a scathing dissent [supremecourt.gov] (starts at p.59 of the PDF). He wrote something which I took great offense at, given that I work with prisoners in California and elsewhere via the mail:
The gyms in California prisons don't have weight training equipment in the gyms because they were all filled with bunks due to the overcrowding. Furthermore, many prisoners have chronic diseases such as hepatitis C and HIV because of IV drug use and prison tattooing. Others have very serious mental health issues thanks to the closure (due to Ronald Reagan when he was governor) of state mental hospitals
Another example of Scalia's callous attitude toward the law is Overgefell v. Hodges [wikipedia.org], in which the right to same-sex marriage was affirmed. Scalia wrote another scathing dissent [supremecourt.gov] (starts at p. 69 of the PDF). The best of the bullshit he wrote can be found here. It's great stuff.
It's really quite a simple choice: Life, Death, or Los Angeles.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 14 2016, @06:05AM
Both left and right would be pissed at the legally proper ruling on same-sex marriage.
In the USA, we have several kinds of law. We have statute law, which is the normal sort of stuff put in place by state legislatures. We also have common law, an ever-shrinking body of law that is left over from English courts back in England. Statute law takes priority, but we don't have statute law for everything.
In the common law, there can be no same-sex marriage. Any state legislature could change this via statutory law, and a few did exactly that.
Agreements made in one state must be recognized in every other state. If two dudes from Alabama get married in Massachusetts, they are still married when they go home. It looks like DOMA was unconstitutional, since it allowed states to refuse to recognize marriages performed in other states. It should however be perfectly fine for a state to refuse to let same-sex marriages be created within that state.
As you can see, neither the left nor the right would be happy with the correct ruling. Ultimately I think the left would effectively win. They would have to fight the battle state by state. They'd prefer to shove a ruling down Alabama's throat of course, because otherwise it might take 40 years to get what they want.
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Sunday February 14 2016, @09:52AM
In the common law, there can be no same-sex marriage. Any state legislature could change this via statutory law, and a few did exactly that.
In other words, and I want to be sure I am getting you right, you have no understanding of law whatsoever? Please do not tell me you are a member of the bar, anywhere.